This section is intended to introduce the reader to aspects of art that may be related to various aspects of the present disclosure described herein, which are described and/or claimed below. This discussion is believed to be helpful in providing the reader with background information to facilitate a better understanding of the various aspects of the present disclosure described herein. Accordingly, it should be understood that these statements are to be read in this light, and not as admissions of prior art.
Cutting horses are used in cattle herding operations to separate calves from a herd. The cutting horse rider maneuvers the calf away from the herd by approaching the calf head-on with the cutting horse, thereby forcing the calf to be removed or “cut” from the herd. Cutting horses require special training to be able to perform the cutting function. In addition, the training must be often repeated to keep a good cutting horse at the top of its form. Cutting horse training is not only a time-consuming process but also an expensive one. This is because live calves can only be used in a cutting situation three or four times before they lose their fear of the cutting horse and learn to act inappropriately. Thus, a cutting horse trainer requires an endless of supply of calves that have not previously faced cutting situations. The logistics and expense of such an operation are out of the reach of all but the most serious users of cutting horses or cutting horse enthusiasts.
Another factor at work in the modern day cutting horse field is the fact that cattle ranches by and large no longer use cutting horses in their every day cattle operations. Now cutting operations are performed by cowboys on motor bikes or four-wheeled all terrain vehicles. There is, however, an ever-growing hobby and sport use of cutting horses, with competitions being regularly held at rodeos, state fairs and the like across western part of the United States, for example, such competitions being hosted or held by the National Cutting Horse Association (NCHA). It is obvious that the occasional hobbyist or professional trainer cannot work his horse often enough using live calves to keep his horse in top condition for shows and competitions.
Numerous attempts have been made to solve the problem of economically training cutting horses such as using mechanical devices. Such past attempts have included using an artificial calf replica or one-dimensional flag mounted to a line to advance or retreat. An operator separate from the horse rider or the horse rider himself could operate the motorized movement of the calf replica or one-dimensional flag in training the horse.
While these attempts have been helpful in being a more economical method of training horses, they still expose an underlying problem of intimidation and high stress to a young learning horse undergoing training. Stress is a known challenge for horses learning how to cut and management of that stress is one of the biggest factors trainers face in successfully training cutting horses to a competitive level. In some instances, horse trainers have found that the use of live cattle or calves has actually been less stressful on the horse than using a simulated calf replica. Here, the calf replica may be appealing to a rider, but it can act as a potential predator to the horse's instincts, thereby creating a highly undesirable learning environment for training the horse. So while the use of moving calf replica's has been helpful in training horses in a horizontal plane or x-axis, it has been more harmful on managing a horse's stress levels, particularly when training the horse in a vertical plane or y-axis with the use of the calf replica.
While these attempts have been helpful in being a more economical method of training horses, they still need an operator to manually move and maneuver the decoy to property train the horse. Hence, what is needed is a device, method, and system that automatically moves and maneuver a decoy for cutting horse training that depends on the horse's location with respect to the decoy.